Spoiler alert: my thoughts on this episode can be summed up by this picture:

Fairly warned be thee says I.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land called Boston, a mafioso by the name of Carmine Abruzzi is having the hard word put on him by a couple of Feds. If he tells them all about his friends, they’ll put him in witness protection so his “friends” can’t find him but Carmine won’t talk to no foot soldiers. He’ll talk to the boss or no deal, so they take him down to the parking garage to transport him to the FBI office. Before they get to the car, a couple of goons jump them, knock the FBI guys unconcious and hustle Carmine into a waiting limo that speeds away.

Life Lesson #61 – Nothing good ever happens in a parking garage. Except perhaps gaining valuable information about exposing a dirty President, or proving the existence of aliens. But mostly nothing good.

But never mind all that because an old friend wants lobster.

Hooray!

Seth demands dinner at his favourite restaurant, the Clam and Claw, a restaurant that hasn’t changed in 75 years – much like Seth. He manages to wrangle a reservation by dropping the word “Doctor” into the conversation but on their arrival at the restaurant later that night Seth is devastated to discover that the restaurant is under new management, his maître’d friend no longer works there and in short, the place has gone trendy.

Poor Seth.

While they are shown to their table, a young man and his pregnant wife arrive. The new maître’d instantly welcomes them as Mr and Mrs Abruzzi and escorts them to the private dining room. A short time later, he returns to the dining room and waits for a knock on the door. A Mr Gant checks to see if everyone has arrived and then asks the maître’d to start serving in five minutes. Inside the dining room is Michael Abruzzi and his pregnant wife Denise, his mother Rosa, his brother Salvatore and his girlfriend Maid Marion Connie.

Dat hair. Such envy.

They are soon joined by (surprise surprise) Carmine Abruzzi, who tells them to stop talking and start eating.

In the main restaurant, Seth takes time out from feeding his face to lecture Jess about how her new book shouldn’t take priority over feeding a friend, to which she sighs and offers him the rest of her lobster dinner, saying she’s too full. There’s a scene at the front door – Andrew Gant’s daughter Phyllis arrives demanding entrance to the private dining room and orders the maître’d to inform her father that she’s arrived. She also demands a bottle of champagne and threatens to pour it down the dress of the waitress if she makes that face again.

What a treasure.

Back in the dining room, Carmine announces that he and Rosa are fleeing the country for Italy via Canada, and that he’s leaving control of the empire to Michael. Michael’s wife Denise shouts “No!” and runs from the room while Salvatore says Michael can’t run the family he can’t even control his wife. Carmine orders him to shut up, but now Andrew Gant chimes in, saying that Michael wants to make expensive changes that the other families won’t like. Carmine tells him to talk it over with Michael.

The maître’d arrives to inform Mr Gant about the arrival of his daughter, who in the intervening time has gotten herself well soused. As Jess and Seth debate the possibility of dessert, Andrew asks his driver to take Phyllis home, and tells her that Sal has better things to do tonight than come to her.

Carmine and a tearful Rosa decide it’s time to go. Michael and Salvatore go with them out to the car, and as Carmine dishes out some last minute advice, a shadowy figure with a gun crawls along a rooftop. Carmine opens the car door and collapses, but he’s not dead. Salvatore and Michael carry him inside.

Sidenote: If I was playing racial stereotype bingo on this episode I think I would have won about ten minutes ago.

Jess settles on berries for dessert and Seth goes for the pie, but before he can take a mouthful the maître’d arrives at their table – there’s an urgent phone call for Seth. He sighs and follows the maître’d out of the room – and doesn’t return. Forty minutes later Jess pays and asks the maître’d where Seth went but he doesn’t know. Jess takes her coat and goes straight to the police station but the sergeant on duty is not feeling particularly helpful. A passing detective hears the name “Clams and Claws” and his ears prick up. He offers to take JB back to the restaurant to find out what happened to Seth.

On the way the detective, Lieutenant Marino, asks JB whether Seth considered the restaurant a hangout, or if he was “connected”, or if he made frequent trips to New York. Jess wants to know what this is about, but Marino tells her hopefully nothing.

At the restaurant, the maître’d takes them to his office and shows them where Seth “took the call”, but begins to look uncomfortable when Marino points out that Seth’s car is still outside. Marino suggests they go and look around, and leave the office. After the door closes the maître’d puts a call in to Sal but hangs up when Marino reappears, requesting a tour guide. Jess is already five steps ahead, and notices a bleached spot on the carpet in the hallway, along with some red spots where they missed. Marino cuts out a sample and tells maître’d, whose name is Freddie, that if it turns out those red spots are blood then he’ll be ruining a lot more than the carpet.

Across town, a patrol car spots a figure walking down a deserted street. He flags them down – and of course it’s Seth. Back at the police station Seth fills them in – after being taken to see Carmine, Seth and the whole Abruzzi clan went to a country mansion where Seth was ordered to save Carmine’s life, which he naturally did because he’s Seth.

Marino fills in the blanks and explains who the shot guy was – Seth is glad he didn’t know it at the time or his hand might have slipped. Jess and Seth prepare to leave, but Marino tells them they can’t go back to the Cove yet. Two feds are on their way up from New York and they want to talk to Jess and Seth. The worst case scenario – they have to go into witness protection in Provo Utah.

Although I would watch the hell out of that show.

The next day, Michael Abruzzi’s wife Denise apologises for running out but says that she can’t be married to a mobster. Michael tells her his father was shot, a doctor treated him and he got better, but then Carmine took a turn for the worse and died an hour ago. Salvatore is convinced that the doctor who treated Carmine is responsible.

At the hotel Jess and Seth are on the footpath waiting for the FBI agents to pick them up when Seth realises he left his medical bag in the coffee shop and goes to retrieve it. A car pulls up and Jess starts to get in before Seth calls out “Jess! That’s the wrong car!”

One of the people in the car pulls out a gun and orders the pair of them inside.

At the country mansion, Michael is slowly taking charge. Andrew informs him that he’s made all the arrangements for burial and the funeral home will come to collect the body in the morning to prepare Carmine to be buried back in Italy. Denise is concerned that her husband is being sucked into the business but he swears that he’s out to make the family legit. He asks Connie to find a guest bedroom for himself and Denise before going to answer the door. It’s one of Carmine’s goons with Seth and JB, and JB is OUTRAGED at the fact she’s been kidnapped. The goon tells Michael he took Seth on Salvatore’s orders, but he didn’t know JB would be there. Which is fair, because let’s be honest JB has had precisely no involvement in any of it so far.

Seth asks about Carmine and Michael informs him that Carmine died – an apparent heart attack after his heart started racing. Seth doesn’t understand, the drugs he gave Carmine would have slowed his heart rate down. A scream rings out from upstairs and Michael is called away to investigate. Connie has just walked in on her boyfriend in bed with Phyllis Gant, the drunken cow from the restaurant and is losing her mind.

Back at the police station, the feds are demanding Marino sort himself out. They listen to the tape again and take note of Seth’s observation that they passed over a covered bridge right before arriving at the mansion. Surely there can’t be that many of Carmine’s associates that this applies to.

After putting pants back on, Salvatore begins interrogating Seth, which soon turns into a shouting match with his brother. Salvatore wants Seth and JB dead even though JB is not involved and Salvatore accuses Michael of wanting to get them a guest spot on Donahue which is a sentence I’d never thought I’d hear again.

I really think JB is unimpressed that she’s not being included more.

After a passionate speech from JB about Seth’s role as a doctor that I wasn’t entirely listening to because Pokemon Go happened, they are joined by Rosa Abruzzo who has just been informed that Connie and Salvatore’s wedding is off. “I JUST HAD MY LAST FITTING FOR THE DRESS YESTERDAY!” she says loudly, in a way that in no way denotes important plot point.

Salvatore goes off after his mother and Connie, leaving Michael with JB and Seth. Seth offers to look at the body to establish cause of death, and although Michael is resistant he agrees. Back in town, Marino and the Feds discover the body of the man who shot Carmine in the first place.

Seth discovers that Carmine was definitely murdered by a clumsy injection. Michael is called away when Andrew Gant arrives back, leaving Seth to tell Jess the bad news – Carmine was killed by an injection of digitoxin, which had been stolen out of Seth’s medical bag along with one of his syringes.

In the next room Andrew Gant tells them that the other mafia families had nothing to do with the hitman, but he doesn’t believe them. He and Salvatore think it’s time for a show of strength.

Seth spots a picture of Phyllis Gent on the table and they realise they are at the home of Andrew Gant. Jess suddenly realises they had it all wrong after all. Seth distracts the guard with a visit to the bathroom while JB phones it in. Unfortunately for JB Salvatore appears at that moment and pulls his gun on her. Michael comes in hot on his heels and orders Salvatore to put the gun down. Then they hear sirens.

Marino and his men appear and arrest Salvatore and Andrew for kidnapping. Marino tells JB about finding the hitman but says he still doesn’t know who hired him.

JB can help him out with that one.

I feel like I’ve written wife of death at least once before.

JB picked up on the fact that Rosa kept a dress fitting appointment even though she knew she would be leaving the country. Rosa, devastated at the thought of losing her family to go on the run with Carmine, hired the hitman but the hitman botched it so she took matters into her own hands.

And now confession: this episode was dreadful, and so the minute I saw Amy Yasbeck my brain wandered and ended up here:

We’re off to Boston this week Fletcherfans, where JB has just been interrupted going about her business by a man slamming into her. She recognises him straight away as her old neighbour, John Winslow, but is confused when he pretends he doesn’t know her.

Well, I say confused.

HOW VERY DARE YOU

Back in Cabot Cove, Jess looks at her old photos of John with his wife Maude. Nope, it was definitely him. She decides to call them up in Chicago to get an explanation, but instead gets Maude telling her her husband died of a heart attack two weeks earlier.

But that’s impossible, says Jess. She saw him on the street in Boston that morning!

Maude makes her apologies and hangs up the phone, saying to the man standing to her that she doesn’t think they’ll get away with it.

Speaking of –

Remember him?

Remember that creepy dude in season 1? I still think they should have done a whole storyline about Jessica doing battle against the creepy dude leeching off rich old women, but never mind.

In any case, Jessica is faced with a dilemma. And there’s only one person with the mad skillz to solve it.

YYYAAAAAYYYYYYY

Harry is delighted to have a case to work on, on account of being temporarily out of the business and his phone is disconnected and his office is for rent and he’s hustling pool most days. He takes Jess out to lunch to discuss the case.

10 points to everyone who knows what this is a reference to (I couldn’t help myself)

The way Harry sees it, either it was a guy who looked like John Wilson, just like Maude said happened, or it was John Wilson in which case what then? JB begs him to look into it anyway and Harry agrees, but warns her it will be strictly on the down-low on account of having lost his PI license after a run-in with vindictive cop Roy Quinlan. Jess tells Harry she saw John coming out of the bank, and Harry decides it will be the easiest 1 days work he’s ever had.

“Suppose I write you a cheque.” Jess says.

“On second thoughts, how about cash?”

I LOVE THESE TWO

Hot on the scent, Harry pays a visit to the bank, conveniently the employer of his old flame Gladys. Gladys is not pleased to see him, but after hearing the story of “Millicent” the scorned wife of a man who looks exactly like John Winslow, she agrees to help Harry nail him for child support.

Harry reports to Jess and gives her the address where John has been hiding out under the name John Wilson. She goes down to see him, but once again he gives her the cold shoulder.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Harry thinks it’s case closed but JB isn’t so sure – she talked to the landlord and John Wilson only moved in 6 days ago, and paid cash to boot. Harry agrees that’s shady, but thinks it could be dangerous. JB doesn’t care – Maude and John were two of her and Frank’s oldest friends and if she can help them she will. She decides to go to Chicago to see Maude and try and find out the truth. She sends Harry off to nose around “in your own inimitable way”, but begs him to be discreet.

I don’t think Harry’s learned that word yet.

Harry wanders down to the precinct to see what information he can dig up. He finds his old buddy Howard Sternhagen in a less than helpful mood – it turns out Harry returned Howard’s golf clubs in less condition than when they were borrowed. Harry reminds Howard of all the favours he owes him and Howard agrees to run the names John Winslow and John Wilson through the system. He quickly changes the subject on the arrival of Lieutenant Roy Quinlan, who offers to arrest Harry for detecting without a license, and Harry offers to rearrange his face.

Meanwhile, Jess has arrived in Chicago and she’s on a mission. She goes straight to Maude’s and meets her brother Adam Paulson. They tell her about the night John died, but Jess isn’t buying it, especially when Adam tells her there was no autopsy and that John was cremated. She tries to get the truth out of them but is thrown out of the house for her trouble. As she leaves, a man in a car with a telephoto lens takes some happy snaps and then follows her taxi as she drives away. The taxi driver points this out to Jess and she tells him to drop her off at one of the big hotels, she doesn’t want to lose the guy in the car.

“Whatever turns you on lady.” Says the cab driver.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said this to me, I would be retired to a beach in Bora Bora. If I had a dollar for every time I made it weird, I would own Bora Bora.

Jess goes into the hotel, and very loudly asks for the restrooms. She manages to lose him in the crowd and hides in a janitor’s closet until he gives up, two hours later. She tails him to the public phones, and eavesdrops on his phone call to a Nathan Swathmore, who tells him the problem is almost resolved, and to lose his number. Jess calls Harry with an update and gets him to go and check on John, while she makes plans to see this Nathan Swathmore.

Harry heads over to John’s apartment, but there’s no answer. He breaks in and finds the body of John Winslow next to an open window. Before he can do anything, Roy Quinlan and another cop appear. Roy is delighted to finally be nailing Harry for something and gets on the phone. Harry asks the other cop, Frank, what happened. Frank tells him they only just got there themselves – a neighbour heard shots and called 911. Best he can figure, someone shot John from the fire escape, through the window.

Back in Chicago, Jess casually name-drops her way to a meeting with Swathmore who is delighted to meet her until she starts talking about John Winslow. He agrees that he is representing his former employer Danford Industries, but has had nothing to do with John Wilson.

“Wilson?” JB asks.

“I said Winslow.” Swathmore says, and throws her out.

JB returns to Boston to discover that Harry has been arrested. She heads down to the precinct to bail him out and runs into Quinlan, who tells her she’s the next suspect if Harry wriggles off the hook. Also the Feds want to talk to them.

Sometimes I press pause and go to make a cup of tea at really odd times.

Some how this picture sums up this blog.

The hand in that picture belongs to FBI agent Guilfoyle, who tells them that John Winslow had been turned whistleblower against his former employer, but had dropped off the radar recently. He also confirms that Swathmore was representing Danford in the charges the FBI was bringing against them.

Jessica tells him about Swathmore’s slip-up when she spoke to him in Chicago, and adds that his secretary had told her Swathmore had just returned from a trip to Boston. Guilfoyle is interested, but says that there’s no way Swathmore would have killed anyone – he would have hired someone else and made sure to have an unimpeachable alibi for the time of the murder. As she goes to leave she spots Maude and Adam across the precinct. Later, over lunch they tell her how they orchestrated John’s disappearance in order to avoid a life of running, including claiming the body of a dead hobo in the hospital as John and getting it cremated.

Harry picks Jessica up and takes her back to his place to collect her suitcases. She agrees there’s nothing more she can do in this case and will head back to Cabot Cove first thing in the morning although I think for Jess it might be sooner.

That is a face of mild horror.

There is a knock at the door and Howard Sternhagen comes marching declaring his friendship with Harry is over. Not only did Harry get him looking for Michael Wilson but then Quinlan comes in asking the same thing and now he’s dead and Howard is done. Harry sends him on his way and tells Jess he has to go – he has a date with Gladys and her kids, as a thankyou for helping him out. Jess goes on her way, but as soon as she’s gone Harry pulls a tape recorder and a gun out of his closet.

I see where this is going.

Jess goes back to the precinct to give her details to Frank the detective, should he need them, and to tell him she feels terribly about getting Harry involved in all of this. Frank tells her not to worry, it was just bad luck that he and Quinlan were in the dinner down the street from the murder, and when Quinlan got back from visiting a ladyfriend, the call came through.

Guys, I get it.

Jess puts a call in to Harry where he’s supposed to be taking Gladys on the date, but there’s no sign of Harry. Harry is in an alley somewhere, doing a deal.

Well, I’ll tell you. Our Heroine is in a boxing gym in Boston, summoned by an old friend who said he was in trouble.

We sure did!

Harry and his boxing pal Blaster (who used to be Al’s best friend on Married with Children) take Jess to watch Blaster eat everything on the menu, and Harry explains his predicament. Once upon a time, Harry was hired to find some mob guy’s daughter, and gets paid five grand up front. A week later, the daughter turns up at her father’s house with her new boyfriend, and so Mob Guy tells Harry he wants his five grand back. Unfortunately for Harry, he ain’t got it any more so he goes to see someone who owes him but finds him deader than usual. He also finds the guy’s lawyer, who hands him the only thing worth any money to the dead guy – a management contract for Blaster.

Seeing dollar signs, Harry takes Blaster down to his local boxing gym to see what can be done. Inside, the owner of the gym Cosmo Ponzini –

Oh, Ernest Borgnine. You were so much more than just that guy in BASEketball

is having a bit of trouble with a local reporter Dave Robinson –

LeVar Burton’s hair is winning Best Cameo of the Episode just at the moment

who is digging up dirt on fight promoter Wade Talmadge, also known as Batman.

THIS EPISODE!

Harry offers Talmadge Blaster’s contract (for a low low price, naturally) and Batman Mayor Adam West Talmadge responds by having Harry and Blaster thrown out of the gym. Word quickly gets around that Harry is persona non grata, and after a very descriptive phone call from the mob guy looking for his money, Harry gets a knock on the door. It’s Talmadge and his trophy girlfriend with a contract to fight Shaun Shaleen in three weeks time.

Back at the pub, Jessica asks Harry how any of this has to do with her. Harry tells her being a boxing manager isn’t cheap (and neither is feeding a boxer by the looks of it) and asks her to invest in Blaster. To shut him up, JB gives him a cheque for five grand, to do with as he wished. While Harry goes off to make some calls, Blaster thanks her for the money but feels bad as she’s never going to see it again. JB tells him she has faith in him and Harry, and that she thinks he can win the fight but Blaster explains that that’s not how it works – he gets asked to fight to make the other boxers look good, but he’s never meant to win. He’s just getting as much money as he can so he can buy a dairy farm down in Tennessee. He’s almost got it paid for, just a couple more fights should do it.

That sounds ominously like a ‘three days til retirement speech’. Anyway, good deed done JB goes back to Cabot Cove, where all is well until she gets a phone call from LaForge Dave Robinson asking why she’s listed as Blaster’s manager with the Massachusetts Boxing Commission.

She loves him, you can tell.

She immediately gets on the phone to Harry but instead gets Lieutenant Casey (previously seen here) who tells her that Harry can’t come to the phone right now as he’s just been arrested for murdering Batman Talmadge.

JB gets on the first bus to Boston and rocks up to the police station demanding answers. Casey gives her fifteen minutes alone with Harry to let him explain himself. He apologises for the boxing commission thing, saying they wouldn’t let him put his name down, and after all it was her money.

This may be the best screencap I’ve got so far.

According to Harry, he went down to the gym to talk to Talmadge, who was in the office with Ponzini and Shaleen, arguing loudly. Shaleen tells Talmadge that his manager, Dennis McConnell, had told him that all of his previous fights had been setups, and Shaleen wanted to make sure that he won the next fight on his own. Harry gets fed up with Talmadge’s girlfriend hitting on him and goes in to the office to interrupt the argument, declaring that Blaster won’t stage the fight. This is fine with Shaleen, but Talmadge tells Harry to do what he’s told. Ponzini adds his two cents and punches Harry in the face, Harry draws his gun, a scuffle breaks out and the gun goes off. Ponzini takes Harry’s gun off him and gives to Batman Talmadge, who reminds Harry he doesn’t care about threats or firearms. Ponzini and Shaleen escort him from the building.

That night, while Harry is reloading and devouring six pack number 2, there’s a knock at the door. It’s Talmadge’s girlfriend.

Actual quote. (I love a good double entendre in the morning)

“Hey, when you’re rolling sevens you don’t ask to see the dice!” Says Harry.

JB is FIERCE in this episode!

The next morning, Harry threw Talmadge’s broad out and went to convince Blaster not to take the dive. When he came home, the 5-0 were waiting for him. They informed him that Talmadge had been found in his car, under a bridge just outside of town, shot in the head with a 38 like Harry’s gun.

Upstairs, JB tries to shoot down Lieutenant Casey’s proof that Harry killed Talmadge, but is stumped when he shows her the ballistics report that shows the bullets in Harry’s gun match the bullet found in Batman Talmadge. JB jumps in a taxi to head to Ponzini’s gym to look for clues but is waylaid by Dave Robinson and his photographer, Pam Collins (literally waylaid, Pam is driving the taxi).

Can’t really be mad though. I mean, look at him.

Seriously though, That hair is a work of architectural genius

Dave tells her about the story he’s planning to write exposing Talmadge for the douchebag that he was. He explains that Talmadge had a habit of building boxers up and then staging fights for them to lose – he did it with Ponzini fifteen years ago and he was planning to do it with Shaun Shaleen in the future. JB wonders how come Dave seems so bitter about Talmadge, but he changes the subject.

At Ponzini’s gym JB finds McConnell and Shaleen training, and sneakily (read: outright) asks them where they were at the time of Batman’s Talmadge’s death. McConnell tells her they were out doing roadwork at the time, but it’s an obvious lie. Ponzini appears out of his office to tell McConnell that the TV networks still want to carry the fight. JB tries to ask Ponzini about his whereabouts, but he just points at the NO WOMEN ALLOWED sign and skulks off back to his office.

Next stop for Jess is the bar, where Blaster is having lunch with his trainer Doc Penrose (played by Fitz from West Wing, and I still haven’t gotten over what happened to him but anyway). Jess asks him to take over as manager of Blaster, since she doesn’t know anything about boxing and Harry is not around. He is hesitant, but after losing another horse race he decides to take her up on the offer.

That night Jess goes to see Harry to fill him in on her progress. Unfortunately, there isn’t much. Everyone seems to have an alibi for the time of Talmadge’s murder – Ponzini was at the gym, Doc Penrose was at the track, Talmadge’s girlfriend Lois went back to her apartment and McConnell and Shaleen were out training. Harry tells Jess that it might be wise to call off the fight but Jess won’t have a bar of it. She’s going to keep sleuthing, and since she’ll have Blaster with her most of the time what could possibly go wrong?

Back in her hotel room after an early morning run, JB is watching a sports report on Shaun Shaleen and his upbringing in the wilds of Minnesota where he was good at boxing and duckhunting. The report goes on to mention the fight, and that Blaster Boyle’s new manager isn’t a grizzled veteran of the fight wars but a sweet old lady…

Shows how much they know…

…who doesn’t know a left jab from a right cross.

THEM’S FIGHTING WORDS!

And that, my friends, is a cue for a TRAINING MONTAGE! We haven’t had a montage since the first episode! Oh, this show has everything!

Worn out from the montage, JB sits down with the Doc and Blaster about the murder of Talmadge, saying that she was convinced that he was murdered to stop the fight, but now she thinks she was wrong. Blaster says he’s not sorry Talmadge is dead, murder is bad but so is fight fixing. Doc tells JB that it wasn’t just Ponzini who was a victim of Talmadge’s greed – he can name a dozen people who fell foul of Talmadge, including the Scranton Scrapper, Lou Robbie who lost a fight he should have won and ended up practically a vegetable.

As it happens, someone else is from Scranton. Someone with a name that sounds like Robbie. Someone who didn’t like Talmadge very much at all.

Pam-the-photographer finds JB in the archives of the Evening Tribune, going through back issues for more information on Lou Robbie/Louis Robinson. They go for a walk out in the park, and Pam confirms that he is Dave’s father, but that Dave didn’t kill Talmadge – he was with her the night of the murder. JB accepts this, then inexplicably asks Pam about Talmadge’s clothes. Apparently when he was killed he was only wearing regular pants and a plain white shirt – not a tweed jacket or tie in sight. Pam tells her that it certainly is weird, Talmadge was a snob and liked to dress accordingly, he wouldn’t be caught dead in plain clothes. Boom tish.

This pun gives JB an idea, and she takes off with Blaster, much to the interest of Talmadge’s girlfriend who appears to be following them in a car. She calls her real boyfriend – McConnell, Shaleen’s trainer – and tells him what she’s seen but he’s not interested and tells her don’t call me I’ll call you.

Meanwhile JB has gone to Talmadge’s house, where she runs into Lieutenant Casey. Apparently he had the same sartorial idea, and tells her that a jacket and sweater belonging to Talmadge are indeed missing. While he doesn’t think this proves anything, JB is convinced the killer took the clothes to cover something up. While Casey searches Harry’s apartment for the missing clothes, JB speaks to the man himself and asks him again if he’s sure the gun was on him the whole time.

“Of course it was!” Says Harry. “Well, almost all the time. I mean I don’t sleep with it, especially on those occasions when I am entertaining a young lady.”

Good work Sergeant,

JB finally agrees with Harry that there’s no way Talmadge’s girlfriend could have swiped the gun. Lieutenant Casey arrives with good news for Harry – they’ve traced the call that lured Talmadge out to the bridge where he was shot. It came from the phone in Ponzini’s office at the gym. Casey is all set to bust Ponzini for all the things, but JB thinks a better idea would be to let her go in and snoop around. Noone takes her very seriously and she might hear something they wouldn’t say in front of a cop.

Seems solid.

At the gym, Ponzini is not forthcoming with information of any kind until JB subtly hints he’s under investigation. Then he lets loose with a torrent of names of people who were at the gym at the time of the call, including Doc Penrose (who was heading to the track) and McConnell and Shaleen (who were about to go out to do road work). All further questions are shot down when McConnell starts talking smack talk at JB, Blaster defends her honour and punches Shaleen in the face for being mouthy.

Down at the police station Shaleen tells them that he didn’t make any calls, but McConnell made a couple, presumably to a ladyfriend. Then he came back, cancelled road work and took off to see said lady friend, so Shaleen went back to his hotel room to watch TV. Harry and Casey don’t buy this story, but JB does. More than that, she knows who the lady is.

JB goes to visit Dave Robinson at the Tribune to get more information on Lois. He doesn’t see why Lois would kill Talmadge, since he was her meal ticket. It’s only as JB is leaving his office and hears the football commentator say shotgun that she realises who the killer is. (THANK GOD, BECAUSE I AM EXHAUSTED). JB goes to see Casey and gets Harry released, and asks him to make sure that everyone involved knows that Harry is released.

The thing is gang, Talmadge was killed with a bullet from Harry’s gun, but it wasn’t fired from a Harry’s gun. The bullet was retrieved from the cushion (where it lodged during the fight in the office twenty years ago when we were all young) and was subsequently fired from a shotgun, by someone who used to be a duck hunter back in the day…

Oh thank God, I thought this was never going to get resolved.

So there you have it. Shaleen decided it was kill Talmadge or be killeed in the ring, and to be fair I can’t argue with that logic.

Anyway, I decided one of the screencaps deserved meme status, so I made one. If you would like to make your own, here’s the image. I used quickmeme.com to make this one…

Trouble’s brewing at the Boston Daily Sentinel this week Fletcherfans. The paper’s star reporter, Haskell Drake, is a little bit miffed that his most recent story in the paper (about one JB Fletcher) was “edited” by the paper’s new owner Lemar Bennett.

An evil tyrant dictating an agenda to a newspaper? Nope, don’t believe it.

*tumbleweed blows past*

Anyway, Haskell’s reaction to being called a washed up old has-been is to promptly have a heart attack. (Bennett’s reaction to Haskell’s heart attack is to order a photographer in). His old pal and former assistant Jessica goes to see him in the hospital and he tells her that he’s done, Finito. He shows her the most recent edition of the paper, containing a photo of JB with a salacious caption.

JB goes to pay Lemar Bennett a visit, and finds him in an editorial meeting picking fights with the current editor Billy Simms, the Editor Emeritus Walter Revere, his son Perry Revere, Perry’s girlfriend Kay Garrett and the sports writer Stan Lassiter. Bennett tries to fob Jess’s demands for satisfaction off (after all, evil newspaper tycoons have a lot on their plates) but finally invites Jess to attend a little shindig that evening.

While Jess goes in to bat for Haskell and tries to get Bennett to give him his job back, the rest of the newspaper stand around glumly, Bennett, being an evil tyrant, is not disposed to help filthy old losers and says so, resulting in a punch in the face from Walter Revere. This sets Bennett right off, and launches into a tirade about how the Revere family are all fired, a tirade that ends only when he drops dead. Aw.

While Kay calls in and gives Billy the update, Jess and Stan ponder what brought the tyrant’s downfall. JB suspects a brain haemorrhage, which surprises Stan, who always assumed that someone would off the old coot. JB, using her Encyclopaedic Knowledge of Evil happily explains to them how it could have been murder, to which Stan says “Well it couldn’t have been one of us then – we’re not that smart, we all still worked for him!” Bennett’s personal assistant Clyde The Moustache takes a bit of offence to this and yells at them for being heartless.

The next morning JB is getting ready to head back to the Cove when she gets a knock on the door from Boston PD. It turns out that Jess is not the only one who suspects murder now, the Medical Examiner agrees and Lieutenant Caruso is quite interested to know what made JB think it was murder. The lieutenant suggests that JB not leave town just yet, but Jess is having none of it, and basically tells the lieutenant to arrest her or bugger off.

In the hospital Haskell Drake is looking a bit better. And by a bit better I mean positively glowing. His mood only improves when Jess tells him that the police suspect foul play. He immediately decides to investigate Lemar Bennett’s life and begs Jess to stick around for a few days to do his leg work for him. Jess is hesitant, and Haskell quickly says not to worry about it, she was never that much good as an assistant anyway.

I suspect I know where this is going.

Outraged, JB immediately agrees to any and all of Haskell’s demands, and sets off to snoop out as much info as she can. She goes to see Kay and Perry and tells them about her mission. Perry is less than excited and leaves, saying he has laundry to collect. Kay is a bit more forthcoming, and tells her about how Bennett was trying to rewrite her story about abandoned children, a story Kay was very protective of.

Meanwhile, at the hospital Haskell Drake is doing an excellent impression of me writing this blog…

Not even joking, not even about the cigars. (That’s a lie).

Haskell is less than impressed with what Jess has come up with and sends her back out into the field to dig up who benefited from Bennett being less than alive. She goes to see Perry at the newsroom but he’s still not budging. Billy Simms is a bit warmer, and grudgingly tells JB that the only beneficiaries of Bennett’s will are himself and Bennett’s sidekick Clyde.

In an amazing and clearly not at all planned coincidence, JB happens to run into Clyde on her morning jog. He refuses to be baited about the (small) amount of money he’s inherited from Bennett, or the new popular theory that Bennett killed himself. And by popular I mean theory that Jess has just invented. She asks Clyde if it was possible that Bennett’s sinus medication had been tampered with, but he says no. He was the only person with access.

Let the record show that this is how you interrogate someone in a park.

(I don’t know why I find this as funny as I do, but I do and there it is)

Meanwhile back at Murder She Blogged HQ the hospital Haskell is digging up some dirt on Bennett via an old society reporter from Tulsa Oklahoma. Rumour has it Bennett knocked up one of the local women who went and died a short time later. SCANDALOUS. Haskell starts throwing some crazy ideas around, but JB isn’t listening. She’s had a thought she doesn’t want to think – about Kay growing up in an orphanage. In Tulsa Oklahoma.

Haskell Drake did not see this coming,

Surprised Haskell is Surprised,

JB pays a visit on Lieutenant Caruso, who is not overly excited about this new poisonous sinus medication/abandoned daughter theory, and more interested in the poisoned handkerchief/killing for her father theory which only makes sense because Walter Revere’s daughter Eleanor has been in it for about 30 seconds and based on previous experiences that’s enough motive for her to kill.

Fortunately Jess is not having a bar of it and sticks to her theory. A presumably legal search of the files from the recent blood donation drive at the sentinel reveal that Kay has the same blood type as Lemar Bennett. Jess goes back to the hospital to talk it out with Haskell, and is hit with a bolt of inspiration when Haskell fakes taking a pill.

Because apparently Clyde wasn’t the only person who had access to Bennett’s medication. And Haskell isn’t the only one who can palm a pill.

Pity. I was kind of hoping it was Walter’s daughter.

There you have it. Billy objected to Lemar’s treatment of his daughter, and finally cracked. But whatever, because!

Did you know there was a Magnum PI/ Murder She Wrote crossover special? There is! And since I have watched precisely 0 episodes of Magnum PI up until now I’m going to take a little break from misrepresenting episodes of Murder She Wrote and misrepresent an episode of Magnum PI instead. At an early guess I would say at least 75% of my thoughts will be about Tom Selleck’s moustache, and that’s a conservative estimate.

High intrigue and shenanigans this week Fletcherfans! Our Heroine has been summoned to Boston at the request of her old friend Richard Bennett who needs her help. Somehow an auction house has gotten their mitts on his now deceased girlfriend Evangeline’s diary and are auctioning it off on Saturday. He gives her a cheque for a million dollars and a letter from Evangeline so she can authenticate the diary, begs her to destroy the diary once she has bought it, and then jets off to Barcelona.

One does not simply walk into Mordor, win an auction for a salacious celebrity diary, however. There are a few people keen to stop the diary from going public, including Robert Rhine, a lawyer working on behalf of a ambassador/former love interest of Evangeline; Doctor Sylvia Dunn, Evangeline’s psychiatrist; and producer Sheila Saxon and director Saul Domino. Sheila has big plans to turn Evangeline’s diary into a movie but needs Saul’s help getting the money for it.

Charged with her mission, JB rocks up to the Readford Auction House and is immediately accosted by its owner, William Readford (previously seen here). He’s disappointed that Richard won’t be attending his dog and pony show, but allows Jess to authenticate the diary. They are rudely interrupted by a guard frog-marching Dr Dunn into the room, after she tried to offer him five grand to steal the diary. The good doctor rants about how disgusting it is that Readford is making money from the the demise of Evangeline, but Readford reasonably points out that he is just the middle man, selling it on behalf of the owner. JB asks him just who that is, and he tells her that it’s “privileged information”.

I don’t think this fool knows who he is talking to…

While she waits for the auction to start, JB checks out the other things up for auction. She notices an antique wardrobe but the security guard tells her it’s blue tagged, and not up for auction this week. Then she notices a chessboard which Readford offers to give her for free, but Jess won’t have it. Readford takes her money and departs, ripping the blue tag off the wardrobe as he leaves. DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK THE WARDROBE IS A CLUE?

As the auction kicks off, the wardrobe comes up and the auctioneer invites all interested to come and check it out. One opens the door to see if it’s a portal to Narnia, and the corpse of Richard Bennett flops out. I guess Barcelona didn’t work out.

The 5-0 arrive to take charge of the chaos and the Lieutenant asks JB what she knows. She explains that Richard gave her the cheque to bid on the diary, and the lieutenant notes with some suspicion that the cheque is made out not to Readford’s, but to JB Fletcher.

“Well obviously I was going to countersign it over to the auction house.” Says Our Heroine.

“Yeah, sure. Obviously.” Says the lieutenant.

JB takes no crap from nobody, y’dig?

Before JB can give the recalcitrant policeman whatfor, Readford appears. The diary has been stolen! The lieutenant asks him when the last time he saw it was and Readford tells him it was when Jessica was looking at it. They all give JB the Eye and she says “Ummm…”

The lieutenant decides that he has more questions and escorts Our Heroine downtown for a little chat. Fortunately for JB a knight in shining armour also happens to be at the police station. (Hint: It ain’t Grady).

It’s Lennie! I mean Harry McGraw! (But really, it’s Lennie!)

Harry (whose black eye is the result of an allergy) gives the Lieutenant 30 seconds to release Jessica before he Completely Hulks Out. He relents and lets Jess go. As a thank you she takes Harry to the chemist to find something for that “allergy”. She decides to stick around to see if she can still get hold of the diary and Harry tells her that she’s going to need protecting, and that “he’s the kind of guy who can give it to her.”

(That’s what he said, etc)

They go back to Jess’s hotel room (meow) but discover that someone beat them to it, and has torn the place apart in search of the diary. Harry asks her if anything is missing and she thinks no…but then she conveniently suddenly remembers that old Spanish chess sets like the one she bought for Seth sometimes had a secret compartment so that they could hide valuables away from the prying eyes of the Spanish Inquisition. SERIOUSLY, WHAT WERE THE ODDS?

Jess presses down on the kings squares and a drawer shoots out, revealing Evangeline’s diary.

Booyah! (I’m not even sorry)

Jess contemplates turning it over to the police, but decides to just have a little flick through, in case of suspects. Despite Harry’s best attempts to sneak a peek JB knocks him back and sends him off to order room service. Sadly not all the tea and sandwiches in the world is enough to keep JB awake. As she sleeps, Harry can’t help himself and grabs the diary.

The next morning JB reluctantly tells Harry what she’s learned so far in the diary – Evangeline had a torrid love life (apart from the ambassador) and was less than complementary about Dr Dunn, Sal and Sheila, not to mention a mysterious person by the name of Al. Jess decides to see Readford and take him (and the diary) to the police station. Harry has other ideas. He takes himself off to see the lawyer who was trying to get the diary for the ambassador, and offers to sell him a photocopy of the diary for a hundred grand.

Jess goes to see Readford, but sadly finds him lying on the floor with a dagger sticking out of his chest. Even worse, the Lieutenant wanders in at that precise moment and finds JB standing over a dead body holding the diary. Oh my.

JB is once again taken downtown for questioning and asks the lieutenant why she would kill Readford. “Beats me Mrs Fletcher,” the lieutenant says, “but every time I find a dead body you seem to be in the neighbourhood”.

Can’t deny he has a point. But, he admits that he doesn’t think JB is a serial killer and lets her go. Outside, Harry is waiting for her and she decides to pay a visit on Albert Cromwell, the guard Dr Dunn tried to bribe.

This is an episode of Law and Order that should have happened…

Despite Harry’s subtle line of questioning (*cough*), Bert insists he knows nothing. Dr Dunne approached him with a bag full of twenties fresh from the bank but he said no.

Harry departs for Secret Harry Business (a date), and JB retires to her hotel, where Dr Dunn is waiting for her. She’s heard there’s a copy of the diary for sale and she’s desperate. As she combs Jessica’s room looking for bugs she begs for the diary, accuses JB of being one of ‘Them’ and declares that no-one is bringing down her lifetime of hard work.

Someone’s been getting into the meds…

Jess goes to see the Lieutenant for another look at the diary, and discovers that some pages are now missing. The lieutenant tells her the only other person with access to the diary is Judge Parker, who they figure must have removed the pages as a favour to the Ambassador.

Meanwhile, it turns out Harry is on a date with Sheila the producer (yeah I’d forgotten about her too), and is rather pleased about it.

If there are an infinite amount of universes, there is one where Jerry Orbach was in Saturday Night Live. Just think about that for a minute…

Sheila tells Harry she’s thinking about making a movie based on his life…in return for the copy of Evangeline’s diary. Harry tells her to get bent (paraphrasing) and sneaks into JB’s hotel room to get the copy. Alas, JB is as usual five steps ahead of him. He tells her it was all part of his cunning plan to smoke the murderer out, but JB insists on harping on ab0ut the mickey he slipped her in her tea. JB decides to take the copied pages to the Lieutenant, with Harry’s reluctant approval but the plan goes awry when the ambassadors lawyer Robert Rhine kidnaps JB at gunpoint. Fortunately Harry returns from his ciggie-buying expedition in time to punch the lawyer in the face. Harry wants to deposit the lawyer on the lieutenant’s desk but JB is more concerned with his hand. “Oh come on Jessica, if I know anything I know how to punch somebody without bustin my hand!” grumbles Harry.

Cut to the next scene where Harry is getting his broken hand set. OH THE LOLZ. Harry seems to think the case is closed, but Jess isn’t so sure and goes to see Sal the director. Before she goes in, his secretary tells her that Richard came to see Sal on the day he died and had a shouting match, the reason for which is later revealed when Sal tells JB that he’s the one who had put the diary up for auction in a quest to drum up publicity. He had taken it from Evangeline’s room the night that she died. JB asks him about the mysterious Al, but he doesn’t know a thing. Naturally.

The lieutenant is less than enthused to learn that the diary belongs to Sal, and Harry has a dig at him for being so ungrateful. In return, the lieutenant rings the license board to have the investigators license of one Harlan McGraw revoked.

Jessica has an epiphany.

EUREKA

And so the case of the Death of Richard Bennett and That Guy What Owned The Auctionhouse was solved.

Call me Al.

Al(bert) Cromwell was Evangeline’s boyfriend before she got famous and didn’t take too kindly to the idea of her memory being exploited. When he went to steal it he was spotted by Richard Bennett who recognised him from his attempts to stalk Evangeline. So he knocked him off, and then Readford when he wouldn’t tell him where the diary was. To top it off, he also knocked off Evangeline, who was not enjoying her fame (according to Al).

Case closed, JB fulfills her promise to Richard and burns the diary along with Harry’s copy. Chalk another one up to the Greatest Crimefighting Duo Since Ever.

I’m pretty excited guys. This week’s episode contains two of my favourite things in the whole wide world: ballet and Communist plots. Naturally, JB is in the middle of it.

Jess has been invited to a touring Russian ballet production in Boston by fellow Cabot Covian and former Russian, Leo Peterson, but all is not as it seems. (Ethan can’t understand why she’s going to see a Russian ballet. Ethan is more concerned with the application of pie to his belly). While Ethan moans about his lack of pie, Jess flicks on the news to see a large protest going on outside the theatre where the ballet is to be held. Apparently not everyone is excited that the ballet has come to town.

Undeterred, Jess and Leo head to Boston. When they pick up their programs, Jess’s eagle eye notices that the man distributing the programs, Art Director Palmer Eddington (whose real name is Paul Rudd – I nearly had a heart attack in the opening credits) pointedly gives Leo one from the bottom of the pile. MYSTERIOUS.

Backstage, Kerry Armstrong is a Russian ballerina named Irina being hit on by a capitalist pig-dog (American). Yes, THAT Kerry Armstrong. I KNOW!

And the winner of most unexpected actress to appear in an episode of Murder She Wrote goes to….

Before the Americanski can get any ideas, KGB guard and all-around Bond Villan Serge Berensky steps in and sends him on his way. Can’t have that sort of business happening backstage! Irina goes to visit her friends Natalia and Alexander, who have big plans for the curtain call of tonight’s show – they’re defecting the hell out of Russia and coming to live in the West.

In the audience, Jess notices a number scribbled in Leo’s program but before she can ask him about it the ballet montage starts. And you must never interrupt a ballet montage.

While the audience enjoys the montage, there are a-doin’s a-transpirin backstage. Berensky and the capitalist pig-dog, whose name is Skip Fleming, are circling each other spoiling for a fight. Outside, the leader of the protesters, Velma Rodecker, is banging to be let in. She’s about to give up when someone helpfully leaves a window open. Palmer Eddington disappears backstage and spots Berensky looking the worse for wear.

All this mysteriousness is too much for Leo, who wanders off himself, leaving Jess to enjoy the ballet montage on her own. When it finally ends Jess is still on her own, wondering just what it is she’s signed up for. WORST DATE EVER. The dancers come out for the curtain call, but the stars of the show are nowhere to be found. Happy to take their place, Velma Rodecker runs onstage, bellows something about Reds under her bed, and is escorted off by police.

Seriously, you don’t get this in Cabot Cove.

Before Jess has time to think, Leo reappears to drag her out of the theatre, and in the nick of time too. KGB kingpin Anatole Karzof (who bears a little resemblance to the Fatman from Jake and the Fatman), is on the hunt. His two star ballet dancers have disappeared, and his right-hand-man has just turned up dead.

Eventually the penny drops for Jess, when she realises her chauffeur looks just a bit like a certain missing ballet dancer. That, and she’s sitting next to his wife. Leo apologises for involving her in such a dangerous scheme, but JB doesn’t care. They turn the radio on and learn about Berensky’s death. Talk about a spanner in the works. Jess takes charge and sends them back to Cabot Cove to be looked after by Ethan while she pokes about in Boston.

Back in the theatre Jess asks for the man in charge. The FBI man wants her out, but in a conveniently happy twist of fate, Colonel Karzof is a massive JB Fletcher fan and insists she be allowed to help.

FANBOI.

Together they visit the scene of the crime, and while Anatole is convinced Alexander is guilty, JB is quick to point out there were other people with motives. Like Anatole.

Anatole is delighted to be accused of murder! Honestly, the sexual tension between these two is insane.

Jess rents a hotel room for a couple of hours. See! Oh, it’s just so she can call Ethan, who is less than excited about having some Soviet houseguests.

A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do…

She finally gets Ethan to do what he’s damn well told, before an incessant knock at the door. It’s the friendly neighbourhood KGB. Anatole asks JB if she’d like to check out his lab report, if you know what I mean.

LOOK AT THAT FACE.

Down at the local copshop, Jess is hot on the scent and manages to cast doubt over Mr FBI and Mr KGB’s theory that Alexander and Natalia killed Berensky. She does such a good job, that they all agree that it must have been the crazy protestor lady, and go off to prove it. Anatole offers JB a nightcap (and by nightcap, I think you know what I mean), but our gal takes a raincheck, and heads out on the town. She’s got questions for Cornelius Snodgrass III Palmer Eddington. P-Ed admits his involvement in the defection, and tells Jess about how he saw Berensky looking a bit beaten up. Eureka! says Jess (not really, but you know what I mean).

Back in the Cove, the sheriff is of course making trouble. Poor Ethan is stressed out trying to keep Amos from sticking his nose in and flirting with Natalia. Amos asks him if he’d seen any Russians lurking around in the shadows, Ethan helpfully points out that he’s not sure he knows what a Russian looks like.

After having breakfast with Anatole (ooer), Our Heroine is on the road back to the Cove. Her spidey senses were telling her that Ethan was in over his head. Everyone wants to hear about the murder in Boston (and by everyone, I mean Amos), but Jess tells him it was Velma-the-protestor. Privately, she tells Ethan that ‘s not entirely true.

That night, she cooks up dinner for everyone to celebrate Defection ’84, but is rudely interrupted by a man at the door looking to buy a part for his boat from Ethan. Ethan tells him to ring someone else, and Jess shows him to the phone. She asks him if he’s from down east, and he replies no, he’s from Maine. Jess and Ethan have a good chuckle over this after he leaves – apparently it’s the same thing. Crazy Maine wit right there.

The next morning, there is a familiar banging on Jess’s door. And by Jess’s door….well, I’m sure you can guess. Anatole, along with Sheriff Amos, were there to see if Jess had any reds under her beds. Well, Anatole was. Amos was more concerned with muffins under the towel, and fair enough too really.

Anatole informs Jess that the missing dancers are back on his radar, and Leo swoops in to take the blame.

And the winner of worst Eastwood impression goes to…

Anatole tells Jess the arrest of Leo was a shot across her bow…and by that I think you know what I mean. The sexual tension has somewhat cooled.

Jess lets them all out, then gets on the blower to Boston – specifically to Irina. JB tells her that all is well with the two runaways, and that maybe she could come up to Cabot Cove and visit them. Seed planted in Irina’s mind (and the mind of the man eavesdropping on the call), Jess goes off on her run, followed by another mystery man.

Anatole is unhappy. Not only can he not find his missing ballerinas, but now Irina has gone missing too. Amos meanwhile is loving life.

Amos, not being browbeaten by Our Heroine.

Irina is closer than he thinks – she’s on her way to the cove with the American pig-dog who was flirting with her at the start of the show. The gang’s all here – someone must be guilty.

Well, whaddya know…

I’ll be honest. I called this one about ten minutes in. Still, WTF!

The things we do for love, kids.

All is well with the world. Alexander and Natalia are safely defecting to America (fuck yeah). Irina does not have to go back to Russia to face trial. Ethan and Amos have both been fed. Alas, JB must say goodbye to Anatole, and like all relationships I invent in my head, this one ends with a freeze frame.